Ratanapala

22 Feb 2018

Local Government elections have come and gone. The Sammuthiwadi Government tried their level best to postpone these elections but to no avail. It was like postponing death, but the day did come and it was as expected a devastating blow to the ‘pretenders’ of Yahapalanaya. The day of reckoning has to come, it has come and it is on them now!

Quite regardless of the outcome, quite regardless of the pre-election vituperative and the vitriolic utterings (which are at most times just a side show for the benefit of the public,) it behooves the President of this unfortunate nation to address the citizens and thank them for a well conducted election and on the choices they have made in the name of democracy and good governance. After all it is people’s verdict and a testimony on 3 years of Yahapalana conduct.

He should be a level above others and show by example he could be above politics at least for a moment. This was what he promised when taking over as President – that he would be different, that he would be an adjudicator and not a partisan. Alas it was not to be. It is now over 12 days since the elections, the President of the country is yet to face the nation and at least thank the miniscule who had faith on him and voted in his favor. This he has not done so far. This clearly shows the character of the man who we now call our President.

To understand this unbecoming conduct of a man, one has to look at who Sirisena is?

Maithripala Sirisena never aspired to be President. He never dreamt that he would one day be President of Sri Lanka. His only dream was becoming the Prime Minister and joining the ranks of Ratnasiri Wickramanayake and D M Jayaratne and fading into political oblivion. He is a ‘luck by chance’ President. According to Tissa Attanayake the former Secretary of the UNP, part of the coup to dislodge Mahinda Rajapakse was hatched at the Naga Vihara in Kotte with Maduluwave Sobhitha as President of Saadharana Samajayak in the lead. At one time this deluded priest too was a contender for President among others that included Shirani Bandaranayake former Chief Justice and Karu Jayasuriya instead of Ranil – who was discarded as ‘un-marketable’. At this time, they apparently had prior knowledge that Sirisena would be joining them with 35 other SLFPers to help the overthrow Mahinda Rajapakse. He was to be given the post of the Prime Minister for this favor – a position he wanted but denied in favor of aging and do nothing DM Jayaratne. When it became apparent that the UNP – who was until then insisting that a UNPer should be contesting for President –  had no takers nor backers that Sirisena became the ‘luck by chance’ contender and in the ensuing melee’ the President of Sri Lanka. It is a sordid tale of treachery and how history repeats bringing unsavory characters to leadership of nations!

Sirisena talks of Sammuthiyawa as if he is part and parcel of the whole Sammuthiyawa Concept. It is not true. The bogus Sammuthiyawa – consensus politics also termed Lichchavi Palanaya was plotted in the US/ UK and that was where Ranil was coached on this ploy as a means to topple the Mahinda Administration, taking the sensibilities of Sri Lankans, majority of whom are Buddhists and their culture into account.  Sirisena is only an ungrateful, unpatriotic, unprincipled and uncouth person who was tapped on the shoulder by Robber Queen of Horagolla ( a very apt Sinhala name _ Horagolla means – The Thieving Lot ) Chandrika Kumaranatunge  (herself a decendant of a spy who betrayed Sri Lanka and became rich) to betray his party and colleagues at the right time. The disinformation campaign aided by Mahinda’s authoritative style of government and the votes of Racist Tamils together with Jihadist Muslims helped topple Mahinda Rajapakse administration.

Sirisena simply does not have what it takes to make a leader having being a subservient follower and not a leader all his life. He does not have a political ideology he can call his own. All he has is a hotch-potch of ideologies, most of them contradicting each other – part Marxist, part capitalist, part liberal and probably parts he picks up from the latest gossip columns in Newspapers. All he has is unmitigated and unquenchable ambition, greed and a certain amount of cunning – which are his readily seen political attributes or what he has picked up doing backdoor dirty politics over the years. He came to know of the ruse – Sammuthiwadaya – Consensus Politics only after betraying his party and colleagues in November 2014. Even though today after 3 years in office he is trying hard to portray as a leader his whole demeanor and actions belie his real nature and character.

The suit never fits, though he has tried different attires at different times and at different occasions. He has tried local and foreign attires, suits of different colors and even padding to straighten his ever sagging back without success. It is the same with his work, approach towards politics.  Unguarded utterings full of vituperative, anger and sheer hatred – qualities, all of which are the very antitheses of his name – Maithree, has prompted his former boss Mahinda Rajapakse to exclaim Is he the same Maithree we knew before”?

Even as he was being made up as the President of Sri Lanka, his political future was doomed. In the first place, he takes up his new position under obligation to the UNP, which had serially failed in finding a leader who could outdo the opposition. Even though he tries to imagine that 6.2 Million voted for him personally in Jan 2015, that is not true. It was simply an anti- Mahinda vote –  the deciding vote coming from Racist Tamil and Jihadi Muslim votes. These are all block votes that reflect the political positions their leaders take to further their political objectives – nothing more. Among these voters there is no democracy. For the Racist Tamils the times have not changed even though Prabhakaran is dead! For the Jihadist the times have not changed even though Bin Laden is dead! Their ideologies continue and their acolytes – the TNA and Jihadist parties the Muslim Congress and other variants continue their expansionist policies to bring Sri Lanka under their domination, physically – acquiring territory, demographically by population increase and financially by dominating economic interests and strategic economy centers.

The fall of Mahinda Administration was brought about by a severe disinformation and regime change project run from the US as well as from India. Ranil was simply their acolyte. This was aided by Mahinda Rajapakse’s arrogance and foolhardy acts that followed the 2010 elections and those of his sons. Although there are still millions that throng around him out of gratitude, he has tainted his record of going into history unblemished as one of the great leaders in Sri Lanka’s history who managed to unify the country.

Sirisena has been used as a cat’s paw to cover up many misdeeds of the Yahapalana fiasco. As soon as Yahapalana Admin came into being they did not waste any time. They knew that there was no money coming from their erstwhile backers the Christian West or from India. This is why they set up the Central Bank Bond Scam and all that followed later. It is no secret now that Sirisena helped cover up the Central Bank Bond Scam that took place less than seven weeks into his administration. It is now apparent that Sirisena was ‘used’ in the appointment of Arjuna Mahendran as the Governor of the Central Bank. Sirisena carry the ultimate responsibility of appointing a foreign national to the post Governor of the Central Bank post. He showed his gratitude to Ranil by dissolving the parliament in June 2015 and preventing the DEW Gunasekara COPE Committee report over the first Bond Scam that took place on 27 Feb 2015 being tabled in Parliament. This led to a series of Bond Scams culminating in an even bigger scam on 29th and 31st of March 2016, the Central Bank still under the stewardship of Arjuna Mahendran and his son-in-law Arjuna Aloysius performing as a Primary Dealer. He is the President of Sri Lanka and the Commander in Chief. He has no business to abdicate responsibility feigning ignorance or coming to know of these crimes only through the newspapers. So many other financial crimes have taken place during his current tenure as President. These include – Sri Lankan Airbus deals, Norochcholai Coal Deals, Cental Highway deals among many others.

Now Sirisena has to carry the can no matter what for having wilfully helped the perpetrators of the Bond Scam in its execution as well as in the cover-up that followed. Now like the proverbial cat that crapped on a slab of rock, he is licking crap doing his level best to cleanup his soiled skin! He too as the head of the Cabinet is responsible for other financial misdeeds of his administration.

Just as much as Sarath Fonseka is only a political non-entity today, Sirisena too will don the same shoes when he is out of power for he has no popular power base. Those who are crowding around him singing hosannas are the same who sang similarly around Mahinda Rajapakse a few years ago. They are only around him for the perks that they can get using his position as the President. They will dessert him just as same as how they left Mahinda, soon after he was out of power. However, unlike Mahinda, it would be expecting too much to think of a future political base for Sirisena in a post-Sirisena era!

Sirisena does not have what it takes to be a national leader let alone a statesman. Time and time again he has proved himself to be a conniving sly fox, nothing else. If he has even an ounce of decency left he should apologize to the nation and resign his post as President, for the harm he has brought on the nation of Sri Lanka since his coming into power.

Patriotic people of Sri Lanka realized their mistake on 9 Jan 2015, but had to wait till 10 Feb 2018 to prove their point. In between what happened was sheer political ignominy!